Columbus, Ohio-based RockBridge Capital LLC is planning to close the historic 99-room Canterbury Hotel in downtown Indianapolis for a nine-month renovation and reopen the property under Starwood’s luxurious Le Meridien brand.

by Adriana Pop, Associate Editor

Columbus, Ohio-based RockBridge Capital LLC is planning to close the historic 99-room Canterbury Hotel in downtown Indianapolis for a nine-month renovation and reopen the property under Starwood’s luxurious Le Meridien brand.

According to the Indianapolis Business Journal, the company will invest about $9.5 million in the renovation project. Slated to begin in early 2014, the makeover will include a new design of the guest rooms, improved elevators and mechanical systems, as well as the complete reconfiguration of the first and second floors. Upon completion of the refurbishments, the 12-story property will be affiliated with Starwood Hotels & Resorts and reopen under a new name and brand: Le Meridien Indianapolis Canterbury Hotel.

RockBridge acquired the 4-star Canterbury hotel in June from local businessman Turner Woodard. In recent years, the property has faced serious competition from other downtown high-end hotels, especially since the opening of the $100 million Conrad Indianapolis or the $450 million JW Marriott complex.

“You’ve had so many hotels open downtown with great quality offerings, and the Canterbury just couldn’t compete,” Ted Stimson, vice president of RockBridge, told the newspaper. “This is what we do. We find undercapitalized hotels and fix them.”

Rockbridge is an integrated hotel investment firm that has executed on over 300 hotel investments in the U.S. over the past two decades. Since 1992, Rockbridge’s team has invested nearly $3 billion in the hospitality industry as part of approximately $5 billion of total transaction capitalization. The principals of Rockbridge have formed and managed 10 hospitality-focused investment funds with predominantly institutional investors.

In other news, Inside Indiana reports that architecture and interior design firm arcDESIGN has acquired the historic 12,000-square-foot building at 201 N. Delaware Street in downtown Indianapolis. The 20-person firm currently located at 8 W. Louisiana Street plans to expand its operations and occupy two levels of its new three-story building by February 2014, once the renovation of the property is complete. Barcelona Tapas will continue to occupy the building’s first level.